Microsoft has scaled back its Windows 10 release schedule to two feature upgrades annually, not the three per year it once said was its plan.The Redmond, Wash. company has hinted since November that it would cut back on the number of Windows 10 upgrades. That's when it began to refer to the schedule as "two to three times per year," rather than the solid three-times-a-year pace it had talked up before Windows 10's official release.

Speculation has been widespread that Microsoft will only issue one Windows 10 upgrade in 2016, then ship the next in the spring of 2017.The slower Windows 10 upgrade tempo is not completely unexpected, most likely because Microsoft realized it could not meet the original 3x pace, or that corporate customers were balking at a three-time-a-year cadence, or a combination of the two.